Enlightenment by small measures

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As the leaves turn colour and tumble to earth, Hallows’ Eve approaches once more, the grand event of the season. Candy, costumes, parties. And with it my new employer in Ottawa, SSi Micro, arrange a staff pumpkin carving contest where contestants must some how work “SSi” (not Psi Ψ) logo/initials into the pumpkin. Do you see it?

The leaves fall, though more slowly for some trees than others, as though they are not yet ready to yield to the coming winter. A reluctance shared by many. This autumn has been very wet, with a heady scent of damp earth and fallen leaves that waft morning and night. And with the autumn comes Hallow’s Eve and a pumpkin carving.

Today’s XKCD comic, while funny on the surface, is a little cynical. I was born just before the Internet (I’m a Star Trek baby), though not much before, but certainly before the Web took off in popularity in 1991 (I was already doing email in 1986).

Before the Internet, as a kid I kept myself busy inside with variety of things from assembling plastic models, model rockets, model trains, and board games, to actually playing outside with the neighbourhood kids, skiing, Judo, running.

Later as a teen in senior school we had lots of school sports options of which I competed in track events like 800m 1500m, 3000m, and cross-country and fun runs up to 22Km; I did rugby in winter, rowing, and later basketball in summer. Throughout my youth and university I cycled everywhere I could.

Before the Internet, I bought my first computer, an Exidy Sorcerer, when I was 13. I used an acoustic coupler modem to connect to BBS’s and FTP archives. I had Mattel hand-held electronic games and my brother an Atrai 2600 console. Despite home entertainment systems, we both went outside (without prompting from mum or dad) for activities with friends. I went to lots of movies (Ok, I had to go out to get downtown), my brother went surfing at Bondi.

And when all else failed, I often huddle quietly in a chair and immersed myself in a book, a real physical paper printed book, where I actually turned pages (and got the occasional paper cut).

Hard to imagine I neglected to mention this before now, but two weeks ago I published and released my first book, «postmaster@YOUR_DOMAIN_HERE», at the M3AAWG Montreal Night Out. The book is essentially a primer and digest of topics of interest to new email administrators; a collection of topics they should be aware of when managing their email systems.

I’m disgusted with the PQ (Parti Québécois) minority government of Quebec, Canada. For all intensive purposes the PQ are behaving as facists, with Pauline Marois looking like a Hitler wannabe, and the OQLF are the gestapo imposing their «lingua fascista» agenda and drooling at the possibility of Bill 14 passing into law.

The PQ appear to be intentionally trying alienate English speakers and their potential supporters in order to avoid another situation with money and the ethnic vote interfering with the PQ’s separatist agenda.

The minority PQ government prefers to push their separatist agenda instead of stimulating economic growth, jobs, or fixing corruption in provincial and local government.

The PQ harp on the idea of preserving french language in Quebec, where what passes for french only vaguely resembles what is spoken in France today (I should know after 16 years in Cannes). The PQ fail to understand that evolution will eventually relegate french to history to keep Latin company.

It is really bizarre why the PQ harp on the influence of English in Quebec so much. Outside of Montreal and the US and Ontario border regions, English influence dwindles the further from Montreal and deeper into Quebec you go, yet the PQ struggle to curb it, if not stamp it out. They fail to learn from examples like Switzerland, which has four official languages and manages normally. Or the Dutch, Germanic, and Scandinavian nations who all appear to learn English to near perfection, yet still remain distinctly Dutch, Germanic, and Scandinavian without fear of becoming British colonies.

Maybe the simplest solution would be for Montreal to separate from Quebec and join Ontario.